Devin came to the apartment for the first time.
I had invited him for dinner, which I cooked because cooking grounded me, and he arrived with a bottle of sparkling water because he had remembered I was not drinking, which was the kind of small attention that registered more than grand gestures ever had.
We sat at the kitchen table, the same table where Marcus and I had eaten a thousand meals and argued and made up and been quiet together and been strangers together. It felt strange to have someone else at it. Not wrong, just new, the way all honest things feel new when they replace something familiar.
"This is good," he said about the food.
"It's just pasta," I said.
"Naomi. Receive the compliment."
I laughed. I had not laughed at something small in months. It felt unfamiliar in the
